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Yuga Labs CEO Greg Solano announced that the NFT company would halt steps towards the CryptoPunks project following community backlash from their new Super Punk World project. On May 20, the official CryptoPunks account announced a new NFT collection called Super Punk World. The collection featured 500 hybrid 3D sculptures blurring the lines between race and gender.
This Step Received Criticism from the Community
The pieces were created by New York-based painter Nina Abney and aimed to pay homage to the early internet roots of the CryptoPunks project. Despite its goals, the collection was criticized by various members of the crypto community for being “woke.” One community member said that Yuga Labs killed the CryptoPunks with this move:
“Get woke, go broke. Yuga killed the Punks today.”
Meanwhile, when another person threatened to sell their CryptoPunk NFT, an investor named Greg sarcastically asked if the account had been hacked. Additionally, a disgruntled NFT investor called on the community to block Yuga Labs and move on.
In response to the backlash, Solano issued a statement on X, explaining that the team planned to collaborate with top-tier artists like Abney to connect Web3 with the traditional art world. The Yuga Labs executive also shared that they planned to reach out to those already supporting Abney’s work in this field. This means it could be distributed through an airdrop event to SuperCoolWorld holders.
What’s Happening in the NFT Space?
Regarding the CryptoPunks collection, Yuga Labs CEO stated that they would no longer touch this collection and shared the following statement:
“What about the punks? Yuga will no longer touch the punks. They will only be distributed from the center and preserved on the blockchain.”
The executive noted that Yuga aims to support museums and institutions in acquiring CryptoPunk NFTs and educating their audiences about the collection. Despite the decline in NFT volumes, the CryptoPunks collection saw a resurgence in March with two transactions setting sales records for the NFT collection.
On March 4, a rare alien CryptoPunk sold for 4,500 Ethereum, worth approximately $16 million at the time, achieving the second-highest sale price for a punk ever. However, the record was quickly broken on March 20 when another CryptoPunk piece sold for 4,850 ETH, worth approximately $16.4 million at the time.
